reef-pi :: An opensource reef tank controller based on Raspberry Pi.

[NeonRabbit221B]

Hey all, its been a while since I posted in this thread. I was looking over the reef brite schematic that @Ryan115 posted a while back and wanted to confirm something...
(here is the post https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/r...ler-based-on-raspberry-pi.289256/post-5170928)

I am trying to hook up my Lumilite strips to my reef pi and in the above post it looks like the PWM voltage to the lights is 0-10V but the power supply that my lights are running on now is a 24V supply. Not sure how the schematic changes and if I bought the wrong voltage regulators as I got the LM7810. Does the in-line dimmer that comes with the lights drop that down to 10V..? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[bishoptf]

Yeah I think if a TRS is plugged in TRRS jack the sleeve will short out the bottom ring which would be the 3 Pin mode, unfortunately I don't have a TRRS jack to verify though. If you get no voltage with TRS plugged in it sounds like is doing what it should.

Can you find another DC power point in the light? With the TRS plugged in use the sleeve for ground probe and see if it is indeed a ground.

I guess another thing you could test is connect light to adapter and see if you get 0-10v testing from the jack in light. You tested plug but how about jack when its plugged in.

Yeah I'm a little reluctant to take it apart, its the only one I have for my frag/qt tank and not wanting something to happen to it. I was trying to think of another way to get 0-10v to the light and see if that worked, I have a buck converter and was thinking of using that, what do you think?

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

Hey all, its been a while since I posted in this thread. I was looking over the reef brite schematic that @Ryan115 posted a while back and wanted to confirm something...
(here is the post https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/r...ler-based-on-raspberry-pi.289256/post-5170928)

I am trying to hook up my Lumilite strips to my reef pi and in the above post it looks like the PWM voltage to the lights is 0-10V but the power supply that my lights are running on now is a 24V supply. Not sure how the schematic changes and if I bought the wrong voltage regulators as I got the LM7810. Does the in-line dimmer that comes with the lights drop that down to 10V..? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I think I got myself on the right path. Not sure how the post listed in the Additional Resources applied to Reef Brite but the LumiLite strips just take a voltage of 0-24V so I should just be able to use a n-channel MOSFET pretty much identical to the original lighting guide. I will keep searching around but I think I way over complicated this. I should have paid attention in my electrical classes back in college.

 

[Martin Lowry]

PH Probe issues.

I have the Michael Lane PH Board and a Milwaukee Instruments MA913B/3 pH Probe. I plugged the probe onto the board today, configured it and everything seems to be working, but I'm seeing a current PH reading of 58. Strange as my PH meter is showing 8.1 . Maybe there's something else that I need to configure (RPI 4.1), not sure, but if anyone has any ideas as to why the strange reading I would appreciate some help :p

 

[bishoptf]

PH Probe issues.

I have the Michael Lane PH Board and a Milwaukee Instruments MA913B/3 pH Probe. I plugged the probe onto the board today, configured it and everything seems to be working, but I'm seeing a current PH reading of 58. Strange as my PH meter is showing 8.1 . Maybe there's something else that I need to configure (RPI 4.1), not sure, but if anyone has any ideas as to why the strange reading I would appreciate some help :p

I've had issues with PH probes also, usually the idea is to calibrate it with a calibration fluid for the various calibration fluids then it should track accordingly.

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

Question... In the lighting example with the MOSFETs we use a resistor between the PWM and gnd I am guessing to protect the PWM pins or to pull voltage down to zero.. Anyways, for a 12V setup like the LED strip in the example it shows a 1K ohm but if I am using a 24 V power supply does the resistor also need to change?

 

[Ranjib]

Question... In the lighting example with the MOSFETs we use a resistor between the PWM and gnd I am guessing to protect the PWM pins or to pull voltage down to zero.. Anyways, for a 12V setup like the LED strip in the example it shows a 1K ohm but if I am using a 24 V power supply does the resistor also need to change?

Should be fine. You can also use ULN2803 like darlingtons if the current draw is less than 500ma
you can also search for LED mosfet circuit, and that will give you quiet a few good reference

MOSFET-LED

A sample circuit used to test a MOSFET driving an LED, controlled by a momentary switch.

www.circuitlab.com

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

Should be fine. You can also use ULN2803 like darlingtons if the current draw is less than 500ma
you can also search for LED mosfet circuit, and that will give you quiet a few good reference

MOSFET-LED

A sample circuit used to test a MOSFET driving an LED, controlled by a momentary switch.

www.circuitlab.com

Its a 30W supply so I would likely be outside of that range. I will read around before I finish wiring it up and testing. It is just very dense reading material haha

Thanks!

 

[robsworld78]

Yeah I'm a little reluctant to take it apart, its the only one I have for my frag/qt tank and not wanting something to happen to it. I was trying to think of another way to get 0-10v to the light and see if that worked, I have a buck converter and was thinking of using that, what do you think?

I hear you, as the single voltage changes when you adjust reef-pi I don't think another 0-10v source will work. I think 0-10v from a buck would be ok but that's on you to try. ;) I would rather open the light and try and read voltage from the back of the 3.5mm jack to make sure 0-10v is getting inside the light. If you use same plug with different source I think it would be the same result. Maybe the sleeve and bottom ring aren't being shorted in the jack as expected.

 

[dmolavi]

Don't worry too much about thermal conductivity, it doesn't really matter if you see a 0.1 degree change now or in 3 minutes. I use aquarium silicone, which is rather isolating thermally, and it's fine, if i put it from 19° air into a 25° bucket of saltwater, it takes maybe a minute, 2 at most, until the sensor shows 25. And if i open a window for fresh air for 5 minutes, it picks up the change in air temperature no problem.

I'd definitely value reef safe materials vs unknown plastics and plasticizers higher than having the sensor be faster by a few seconds

Got the new probes and put a thin layer of DAP aquarium safe silicone on the probe, paying special attention to the cable/probe 'joint' to seal that up. After a 24hr cure and testing against a NIST-calibrated thermometer, it's in the tank and everything is good :)

 

[elysics]

A few days ago, i had the issue of the dosing pump failing to stop rear its ugly head again, twice. One time i caught it and could hit the killswitch, the second time it emptied my alkalinity reservoir, thankfully not completely full and before i got around to raising the concentration. Still put me at 10.5° dKH. Slowly backed down to 8.5 now, no damages apart from a STNing S. hystrix, but i expect it to recover just fine.

The only change i made beforehand was exchanging chained together audio cables going to a light over another tank with a single long cable that crossed some power cables when i initially installed it, since i moved it away from the power cables it hasn't happened again (yet). The other end of the audio cable attached to two op amps fed by low pass filtered signals from the two pwm pins on the pi zero itself.

At least one of those times coincided with wifi going down and the pi kicking up it's reconnect script which kept failing for 2-3 minutes until the router started back up again, cpu utilization never went to 100% (or even above 50% if I can trust the graph) though.

So, i need to change something. I am still considering detaching the dosing to a dedicated arduino, but i really like having direct control through the reefpi UI. Another idea i had was to tie all enable/standby pins of all the dosing motoro driver boards to one or two GPIOs and enable/disable them before and after the expected runtime of the dosing pumps, that would at least limit the amount of overdose. Is there a problem with that approach i am not seeing?

And is it plausible that some signal induced through the audio cable stopped the i2c command to turn the pca9685 channel for the dosing pump off?

 

[DirtDiggler2823]

Hi all, I just updated to 4.1 and now I have 15 number after the decimal for my pH. How do I remedy this?

 

[bishoptf]

A few days ago, i had the issue of the dosing pump failing to stop rear its ugly head again, twice. One time i caught it and could hit the killswitch, the second time it emptied my alkalinity reservoir, thankfully not completely full and before i got around to raising the concentration. Still put me at 10.5° dKH. Slowly backed down to 8.5 now, no damages apart from a STNing S. hystrix, but i expect it to recover just fine.

The only change i made beforehand was exchanging chained together audio cables going to a light over another tank with a single long cable that crossed some power cables when i initially installed it, since i moved it away from the power cables it hasn't happened again (yet). The other end of the audio cable attached to two op amps fed by low pass filtered signals from the two pwm pins on the pi zero itself.

At least one of those times coincided with wifi going down and the pi kicking up it's reconnect script which kept failing for 2-3 minutes until the router started back up again, cpu utilization never went to 100% (or even above 50% if I can trust the graph) though.

So, i need to change something. I am still considering detaching the dosing to a dedicated arduino, but i really like having direct control through the reefpi UI. Another idea i had was to tie all enable/standby pins of all the dosing motoro driver boards to one or two GPIOs and enable/disable them before and after the expected runtime of the dosing pumps, that would at least limit the amount of overdose. Is there a problem with that approach i am not seeing?

And is it plausible that some signal induced through the audio cable stopped the i2c command to turn the pca9685 channel for the dosing pump off?

Another option is to go with something like the BRS dosers that are controlled via an outlet, which is just a timer in reefpi. I have both types and have decided to go with the BRS just from a safety standpoint, they are much slower but I can dial them in and ensure they are off with additional timers so it's pretty failsafe. I have 2 types of power strips in my setup, one set is normally open and one set is normally closed, I have the brs dosers tied to the normally open so if something happens with reefpi they should not stay on.

If you want more details let me know.

 

[bishoptf]

Its a 30W supply so I would likely be outside of that range. I will read around before I finish wiring it up and testing. It is just very dense reading material haha

Thanks!

FYI I am using this board in multiple reefpi installations with modifications - mosfet board I always swap out all the connections with JST-XH connectors and usually swap out the mosfet since its a power mosfet and not a logic level. you bring pwm and gnd from the pi and then connect your power input and output to light and it works fine. You do need to pay attention to how many amps your pulling and ensure your wiring is sufficient for the input and output to the light. FYI JST-XH connectors are only rated for 3a but at least for my lighting connections they are all under that threshold. The screw terminals can handle much more I just dont like screw terminals.

I can get a pic of what they look like when I have modded one if you want just let me know.

 

[elysics]

Another option is to go with something like the BRS dosers that are controlled via an outlet, which is just a timer in reefpi. I have both types and have decided to go with the BRS just from a safety standpoint, they are much slower but I can dial them in and ensure they are off with additional timers so it's pretty failsafe. I have 2 types of power strips in my setup, one set is normally open and one set is normally closed, I have the brs dosers tied to the normally open so if something happens with reefpi they should not stay on.

If you want more details let me know.

Doing 230v tinkering isn't really an option for me quite yet, but putting a normally open relay on the 12V rail going to the pump drivers might be another way to do a failsafe.

That'd put quite the strain on that relay though, going on and off around a 100 times a day, or I'd need to take up quite a few gpios if I'm going to do it per pump

 

[bishoptf]

Doing 230v tinkering isn't really an option for me quite yet, but putting a normally open relay on the 12V rail going to the pump drivers might be another way to do a failsafe.

That'd put quite the strain on that relay though, going on and off around a 100 times a day, or I'd need to take up quite a few gpios if I'm going to do it per pump

Yeah you have to look at all of the options, didn't notice you were 230v, so understand on that one. I have a nano tank so mine on/off cycles are way smaller, juest wanted to through some ideas out there to think about, lots of different ways to do things.

 

[elysics]

Yeah you have to look at all of the options, didn't notice you were 230v, so understand on that one. I have a nano tank so mine on/off cycles are way smaller, juest wanted to through some ideas out there to think about, lots of different ways to do things.

Yeah no worries, any advice is appreciated. I have a nano tank too, most doses are sub 1ml,alkalinity at around 3.5ml per hour right now

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

FYI I am using this board in multiple reefpi installations with modifications - mosfet board I always swap out all the connections with JST-XH connectors and usually swap out the mosfet since its a power mosfet and not a logic level. you bring pwm and gnd from the pi and then connect your power input and output to light and it works fine. You do need to pay attention to how many amps your pulling and ensure your wiring is sufficient for the input and output to the light. FYI JST-XH connectors are only rated for 3a but at least for my lighting connections they are all under that threshold. The screw terminals can handle much more I just dont like screw terminals.

I can get a pic of what they look like when I have modded one if you want just let me know.

If you can a picture of the wiring would help. The mosfets I used seem like they have a hard time at lower voltages so I appreciate the tip!

 

[bishoptf]

If you can a picture of the wiring would help. The mosfets I used seem like they have a hard time at lower voltages so I appreciate the tip!

Sure here are some pics of the board, you can find them in lots of places, but for the rpi you want a logic level n channel mosfet, since you want a lower gate voltage.

Vin/gnd is power input, V+ and V- would go to the light and then the connections on the left side you would use sig and ground from the pi, you do not need to use the vcc connection.

Here is how I modify them since I do not like the screw terminals:

A three pin jst-xh connector lines up with the center pin pulled. I am using the this mosfet but there are other versions - mosfet Like I said keep in mind that JST connectors are only good for 3a and you may need more depending on your light, have to run the numbers and adjust accordingly.

Here is a video showing the board being hooked up etc, lots of Robo names, lol - Robojax

Hope that helps...:)

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

Sure here are some pics of the board, you can find them in lots of places, but for the rpi you want a logic level n channel mosfet, since you want a lower gate voltage.

Vin/gnd is power input, V+ and V- would go to the light and then the connections on the left side you would use sig and ground from the pi, you do not need to use the vcc connection.

Here is how I modify them since I do not like the screw terminals:

A three pin jst-xh connector lines up with the center pin pulled. I am using the this mosfet but there are other versions - mosfet Like I said keep in mind that JST connectors are only good for 3a and you may need more depending on your light, have to run the numbers and adjust accordingly.

Here is a video showing the board being hooked up etc, lots of Robo names, lol - Robojax

Hope that helps...:)

I appreciate the tip! ordering now!